Iron Man: Gamora in Chains
by Kazakh Doom
Summary: Obadiah Stane has taken over Stark International. The company needs a Stark's big brain; alas, Tony's still a minor. And yet, it seems that Stark International isn't the only one who's in need of Tony's unusually accommodating brain...
1. Chapter 1

This is the HQ of Stark International. On the upper floors of this place, its officers brainstorm.

Howard Stark is dead. Obadiah Stane, his lifelong friend, has replaced him as CEO of the company. Around him, his fellow officers have assembled. They won't leave until they've properly endowed the Stark family's legacy.

Before Stane, at the head of the table, sits a chessboard. Stane portrays his thoughts-which are mostly indecipherable, as far as his fellow corporate officers are concerned-via moves on the board throughout the meeting.

Near him, Jasper Sitwell, the corporate vice president, sits. He's the officers' middle man between themselves and SHIELD.

Across from him, Vicky Snow sits. She's the head of Project Whiplash.

Marcy Pearson also attends. She's the head of Project War Machine.

Ramona Napier also attends. She's a vulcanologist, and the head of Project Magma.

Talia Kruma also attends. She still grieves for Neil, her lover...but at least she can still work.

The officer team of Stark International isn't as it was under Howard Stark. Many employees who were loyal to Stark Sr have either resigned or been fired. Clearly, no one in California is ready for Obadiah Stane to take the reins of the company. Too bad; no one's stepped forward to replace Stane.

And as far as Stane's concerned, that's just fine. He hates power struggles...and he means that subjectively.


	2. Chapter 2

This is Malibu. A very nice mansion, near the coast, is the residence of a certain orphaned prince.

Still a minor, Tony Stark sleeps near-naked on a futon. He's not alone. A hot girl's in the bed with him. No stress; by the time the sun rises, she will still be a virgin.

Tony is too. But JARVIS, the AI who runs the mansion, isn't sure for how much longer...

Vlora is from an Albanian family. They have no idea where she is. They THINK they do... But naturally, if they did, they'd both be in some really deep shit right now.

Not that she doesn't know what that's like... But even so, all the more need for secrecy.

Her underdressed body's got at least one Muslim tattoo on it. Tony sure hopes that one isn't her favorite...

Vlora's a brunette. When it comes to Albanians, Tony prefers them that way.

They lie next to each other throughout the night. Tony's too smart to make her pregnant. He'll have a MAJOR mood swing, though, when she leaves. And she will...

Tony lies awake. His father's dead. Stane is in charge of his father's company. The company's name is Stark International. It should have a Stark working for it. Stane is not a Stark. A friend of a late one, yes, but... Tony's never had secure hunches about Stane.

The world is in trouble. It needs a better place to live in. Stark International won't enhance it under Stane's rule. Tony just knows it...

As much as Tony hates to, he slithers off the futon, and leaves Vlora alone in it. He'll be back. Or rather, he plans to. JARVIS, on the other hand, is less likely to assure her of his prompt return...

In the hall, there's a closet. Tony shuts himself in. He presses a pad on the wall. The pad takes him down, in an elevator, beneath the mansion...

This is his lab. The accommodations are hardly his dream come true...but this is just temporary, until he can finally experiment freely in his own home as an adult...if he ever becomes one.

He's working on an exosuit prototype, which he calls Mark I. After many field tests, he's made it out of a gold-titanium alloy. One day, he's going to fly in it. One day, he's going to become the firefighter who puts out Stane's fires, once Stane takes his greed for iron and weapons too far, in a way that'll surely make Stark International infamous.

Tony admits that his father's legacy probably doesn't deserve to be protected, as much as his father probably abused it in life. But if anyone asked Tony if he wants to be poor when he grows up, the answer would be no...so this is what Tony must do, until it's safe for him to share his vast knowledge with Stark International.


	3. Chapter 3

After a long day at work, Su Yin drives to the Stark Mansion to check on Tony. As much as she didn't approve of some of Howard Stark's old habits, she dares admit that Stark International was better off under his rule.

The gates open. She drives her Toyota through. She parks in the multi-car garage. God-forbid, she thinks, if Tony will be able to afford all this when (and if) he grows up...

She ascends the front steps in pumps. She unlocks the door.

The house is a mess. Some spots in the house look like there've been explosions. Ms. Yin has trouble breathing. In some spots of the house, she has trouble seeing, too.

Nonetheless, she cleans and repairs the house. She proceeds in baby steps...as she always does.

The phone rings several times, as she works. But Tony's like family to her; she must prioritize him...as much trouble as he always is.

At long last, the house looks decent. Ms. Yin feels as if she's gotten a good workout. She lies on the sofa, with her shoes and shirt off, and snores while breaking. As she sleeps, the red message light on the phone beeps.

At long last, she listens to the phone's messages. JARVIS relays them to her.

Tony's in the hospital. Reluctantly, but lovingly, Ms. Yin re-dresses herself and prepares for an errand to the hospital.

Tony looks bad. His body's banged-up. The nurse has given him a sedative. But it's barely working.

The doctor tells Su Yin that Tony was found in the side of a house. It'd looked like he'd fallen into it...which seemed unlikely. They've asked him about it, but no one's been able to make sense out of what he's said about it. Nonetheless, he's stable.

Ms. Yin visits Tony in his room. She sits, and watches him bob in and out of consciousness.

She whispers his name. She holds his hand.

Beneath the covers, Tony's penis becomes erect. He tries to remain subtle while covering it up. He apologizes to Ms. Yin. He swears he's not trying to be too much trouble.

Ms. Yin assures him that he isn't, and never has been too much trouble for her. His parents would've thought otherwise. And personally, Ms. Yin wouldn't have blamed them. But she swears she wouldn't be here if she didn't care about him.

Tony's dick gets harder. At least she doesn't look like she's trying to notice.

Tony begs her to let her take him to work with her sometime. Stark International needs his big brain. The company needs a Stark on its bridge, and as it is, there is none. He knows he's just a minor, but he's smarter than most kids his age, and he has trouble maintaining platonic relationships because his brain is bigger than most of his peers'...

Ms. Yin understands his concerns, and his ambitions. But Mr. Stane has made it clear he doesn't want to see Tony in any of the conference rooms at any of the Stark International buildings when the officers are meeting in them. He insists that running a company is an adult's province. Tony may feel like he's got everything he needs to guarantee the company's success...but this time, alas, the law is on Stane's side when Stane says "no kids, Stark or not, allowed."

Tony implores. But Ms. Yin is a woman of duty, and rejects him each time. Tony should hate her for it. And yet, why does his dick get hard each time she attends to him?


	4. Chapter 4

With JARVIS's help, Tony helps a local beauty, Zaira, sneak into the Stark Mansion. Her family is Armenian-and for the most part, has no idea she's here.

Tony asks her if she's a Kardashian. She laughs, and reminds him that Armenia is a big place, and the Kardashians are just one family.

Zaira's a ravenhead. Tony prefers brunettes and blondes; ravenheads remind him too much of himself. Nonetheless, he's taught himself that pickiness makes a great servant, but a bad master. He could have a better-looking woman any time, he knows...but as long as his business needs good numbers, he'd be wiser to not give his prospective clientele a reason to doubt his availability.

She confesses to him that she's thought about dying it blonde. Tony smiles, and dares her to try.

Kim would, after all...and has. From what Tony's foreseen, most men prefer her that way.

But at least she's brown-eyed, whereas Tony's eyes are blue. Thank Caelus; Tony wouldn't be half as seductive, he's sure, without them.

They're in Tony's bedroom. JARVIS locks the door. They both take off their clothes. JARVIS opens the windows. They sit on the bed. They sit close. They revere one another's presence. If it weren't sexual, it'd feel like love.

Tony's tempted to touch her. But he mustn't. He mustn't give her hope where there isn't. He wouldn't commit to any woman if Jehovah himself earmarked one of them for him.

Ah, Armenia. Why can't they breed more? Their women sure are a sight... OTOH, if they did breed more, the Kardashian sisters' value would plummet...

Her skin is the perfect tan. Her white lingerie is the perfect fit on her. Her raven hair is long, straight, silky, and sheeny. Her lips, and boobs-in-progress, are huge.

He's hard for her. He knows she can tell.

She caresses his upper leg. Her hand is soft, and moves slow towards his midriff. She caresses his abs with her finger. As small as he is for his age, they're just as hard as his cock.

She tells him to stand. Confused, he does. Every now and then, she tells him to turn. For some reason, Tony doesn't get tired of standing as he would think in this situation.

Often, she tells him to face away from her. Tony thinks he knows why, although he doesn't entirely understand it...

They lie together, on the futon, nearly in the buff. He lies behind her. His cock is still hard. She seems comfy. Tony feels bad that this time tomorrow, she'll be back in a cheap bed with her relatives sleeping just down the hall. Oh well; her issue, not his.

The hours pass. He thinks about Stark International. They need him. They'll never understand unless he proves it to them.

He can. He KNOWS he can...

As much as he hates to, he abandons the Armenian. He sneaks into the closet, and descends into his lab.

He's been working on something that'll help him break into Stark International HQ in the light of day. No one will see him. If they do, they'll mistake him for a bug. And for the most part, it'll feel just like wingsuit-flying, or skydiving...

Zaira will have to find her own way out. Tony can't swear that there's a way back from where he's going.

In his lab, there's a gas chamber. He programs it to do certain things at certain times. With that, he climbs in, while in the buff. It seals itself with him inside, on cue.

Also on cue, it floods itself with gas. Tony breathes it. It makes him ache. The pain becomes so severe, he passes out.

Above, Zaira and Ms. Yin both sleep in separate rooms. Both are unaware of each other. But most notably, they're both deaf and ignorant to Tony's agony beneath the mansion. They'd best sleep; it won't last as long as Tony thinks.

The gas clears, and the chamber opens. Tony's the size of a mite. Everything is so much bigger to him. He'll have to hike across the chamber floor just to get out.

No stress, though; that's why he's been working on what follows. Via neural implants, he summons a thread, which weaves a pair of briefs around his bare rear. In the same manner, he summons a glider. Flying itself, it attends to him.

Unlike the Green Goblin's, this glider is red and gold. It's made of modular detachable parts-just like the armor on the exosuit he's been working on.

Upstairs, Ms. Lin snoozes on a bed in the sitting room. She doesn't have the dignity to take up refuge in what was once her boss's and his wife's chambers.

Like a gnat, Tony attends to her. She's sleeping topless. Tony hovers near her boob, and jumps off the glider. Goody; she doesn't feel him land.

In her sleep, she heaves a sigh. She seems to be having good dreams...or even better, none. That's fair; Tony can only imagine that her life is a living nightmare by day. And the sad part is, he usually makes it worse.

Ah, what a splendid view of the lounge Tony has from up here. He wishes this moment would never end...

Alas, it'll all end about dawn. Unlike Tony, she works for a living...for a man who's better off parting with his predecessor's memory than she and Tony are sure he is dwelling on it.


	5. Chapter 5

This is Stark International HQ. Su Yin is about to smuggle Tony inside...whether she realizes it or not.

Tony's stowed away in her purse. He almost stowed away in her bra...but decided that her purse was a more stealthy entry.

Ms. Yin gets past HQ security, as usual, on a whim. The guards are idiots; their software _clearly_ isn't prepared for a mite-sized burglar.

Tony hates to leave Ms. Yin in the brutal company's hands...or Mr. Stane's. But he's within HQ limits, so he might as well begin making headway to the source of the company's intelligent assets.

Atop the glider, he abandons Ms. Yin's purse. She doesn't even turn to acknowledge her old boss's tiny son.

She was worried when she didn't find him in his room earlier this morning. Alas, her job won't do itself, so here she is.

All around the world, Stark International is making the best of all of humanity's knowledge. Humanity gives and takes. Stark International gives and takes. The balance of information sharing varies from month to month, depending on what there is, whether it's discovered, who discovers it, and who shares it with who.

Under Stane's leadership, Stark International takes many materials for weapons-mongering. As a result, humanity gives it away. Whatever they give away for Stark International, they can't exploit for themselves. If they knew how, they could, and say no to Stane's forces whenever they came collecting. In a way, Tony hopes almost as much as Stane that they never learn. Alas, these are in places Tony is kind of glad he doesn't live.

Nonetheless, weapons are a waste of invention. With luck, Little Tony can encourage Stark International's less-biased employees to start thinking more humanely, as far as what to buy, produce, and sell.

Like a gnat in the dark, Tony glides into the computer lab of Stark International HQ. This is the company's brain. It imports new info, files owned info, and exports info to those who need it more...just as long as "those" have something to trade for it. Tony...just isn't so sure what the company does get in exchange for the info it has to share.

And for all Tony cares, none of this info is for inter-corporate use. And that's probably going to get worse under Stane's reign...

One small movement at a time, Tony hacks his late father's company's mind. He researches. He analyzes. He transfers knowledge, based on who would pay the most from knowing what.

And, best he can, he tries to make it easier for the better people who work here to make sense out of the company's vast amount of intellectual resources. With luck, their talents will help put Stane out of business like none of Tony's will as long as he's too young, and too strange by Stane's will, to work at his late father's company.

Tony works well into the night. Outside the building, the security guards don't seem to notice the dim glow of computer screens, as little Tony labors on and within them.

Tony works well into the morning. As his guard is down, he gets a visitor...

Abruptly, he gets swatted against a wall. He doesn't remember what happens next.


	6. Chapter 6

This is Svartalfheim. Here, it's always night. A glowing singularity is the only light that ever shines. The air is hard to see through, and the soil looks burnt.

In the seas, the fish hide their shame as they swim in its benthic deep. The prawns are blind, and as long as attack submarines.

Here, blind characins don't live in caves. They've darkness to swim in all the time. They're among the most popular aquarium fish on Svartalfheim. Some schools' specimens are as big as tennis balls.

The sable antelope here have red glowing eyes. Their horns are like swords. Their ears droop. They're usually famished.

In the forests, the sable martens climb low, and stick to the shadows. And there are plenty in these woods. Snow White would do more than wet her pants if she ever got lost in these woods. She'd go into fifty phases of estrus before dying of a hemorrhage.

The jerboas' eyes glow red too. They can electrify their tails. When they leap, they make no sound. And the loose black soil only aids with part of that.

Ringtails loaf on lone mounds. They lick their chops...but seldom ever hunt.

The nightjars here seldom fly. And they just as seldom open their eyes.

The screech and scops owls haunt the forests. They barely hoot to one another, and they seldom hunt.

The megabats here are as big as eagles. And when they use echolocation, they shriek.

Here, aardwolf pairs cuddle, as they rest deep in their burrows. The female is pregnant...with pups of darkness.

In the depths of the seas and lakes, swarms of hagfish guzzle the blood from sunken corpses. Like leeches, they can't get enough...and they can't stop breeding.

In the same depths, the sperm whales' eyes glow red. When they use their echolocation to hunt, they shriek.

In pelagic waters, pilot whales swim in pods. They hiss and cackle when they use echolocation.

Basking sharks, the largest fish in Svartalfheim's oceans, open their gaping mouths wide, as if yawning, while guzzling plankton.

In the forests, the brocket bucks grow mace-shaped antlers. At their size, they often have to use them.

In the same forests, the okapis' eyes glow red. They lurk in the forests' shadows, lapping up leaves with their long tongues.

In the swamps, the softshell turtles hide their shame. They look weird...and their shells won't protect them from predation.

In many skies, the starlings, grackles, blackbirds, ravens, and crows never leave. There's just too much to forage, and too much for them to talk about.

On the coasts, vast colonies of cormorants nest. Their wings are usually spread.

In the forests, the cicadas look creepy. And from the ground, they breed like rats. Their chorus is noisy and creepy. And it's always performing.

In deep water, chimaeras dwell. (Cartilaginous fish; not mythical monsters. Although yes, there are more than a few of those of Svartalfheim.) Their dorsal fins pack a venomous punch.

In the swamps, black bullhead catfish dwell just beneath the surface. All but their whiskers and swim bladders seem bored.

In deep seas, coelacanths dwell. And they are FAR from rare, as they are on Midgard.

In the same benthic depths, a _Vampiroteuthis_ dwells; a vampire squid from Hel. He electrifies his tentacles when he feels threatened.

Yes indeed, Svartalfheim is the Dark World. But it's its dominant species that makes it strong; and even then, that was nothing impressive in contrast to Asgard-or even Alfheim, their closest neighbor in the Nine Realms, besides Midgard.

In a very strategic place on Svartalfheim, a shadowy cloud dwells. When one passes through the boundary of this cloud, they are soon overwhelmed.

This is the royal palace of Svartalfheim. If Svartalfheim is dark, the grounds of the royal palace are darker. Bare trees, without leaves, grow all over the grounds. Killer vines cover the outer walls. The portcullises are shadowing screens. It's always cloudy here.

In the dungeons, a POW is tormented. Gamora, a Zen-Whoberi warrior and assassin, suffers from an induced hallucination, as her captors force her to relive the destruction of her race's world. She screams and cries. Helpless in her own subconscious, she can't always tell it isn't real.

From an elevated corridor, the dark elves' king, Malekith, watches. He smiles. He needs Gamora for something he plots. It's just too bad that Gamora is virtually an impossible warrior and assassin to break.

He hardens, somewhat, when he thinks or looks at her. But he mustn't let that distract him; as usual, his people are in peril.


	7. Chapter 7

Like a flea in a trap, Tony's been caught. He dreads what his captors have in store for him...

He can't remember much about what went down between himself and his captor. It was dark in the computer lab when they clashed.

It's dark. Tony can't tell where he is. But he can tell that he's standing/sitting/lying on a metallic surface. Desperate, he uses his neural implants to call his glider.

Somewhere far away, his glider thrashes around inside a glass jar, like a gnat. It can't get out.

Tony sighs. In the dark, he painstakingly awaits his judgment.

In the downtime, he tries to think of a way out. It's hard for him to use his intelligence, though, when he can't see anything around him.

Outside and below, Tony hears a door close. And he hears footsteps. They make thunder as they approach. They're getting close.

Tony considers burrowing beneath the metallic surface of whatever he's on. Then again, it's possible that whoever knocked him out put in in his place, whatever it is...and therefore, would suspect that. Although Tony must confess it seems strange that whoever caught him is used to doing this. Then again, if they were, he'd expect more constricting restraints...

Everywhere, the ceiling elevates. Light floods inside the space Tony's in. He sees a black woman's rack...and her face beyond. She seems shy...for a giantess.

Tony looks around him. He's standing on a mountain range of jewels. He's like a mite among them. Whoever she is, she's been keeping him in her jewelry box.

He knows her. She's Marcy Pearson; an officer of his late father's company.

She lowers her finger into the box. To Tony, it's like a draw bridge. She's painted her nails. She's making Tony hard.

She's old enough to be his grandmother. But then, Su Yin is too...

"Climb onto my nail, little Tony," she says in a sultry alto voice. "I may be like a goddess to you," she adjusts her top, "but I'm still all woman."

She's right. She is. Tony's not sure his father would want this. But then, he'd probably do the same thing...

He climbs onto her painted nail. It's a steep climb.

Ms. Pearson smiles. She lifts her finger. If Tony wasn't used to flying, this part would make him dizzy. She levels her own fingernail out in front of her; Tony doesn't have to cling anymore.

She flaps her hair, and loosens her top. Tony's never been dominated by a black woman before...or at least, not while this size.

"I would say I miss your father," she says. "But this," she wipes her brow, "is SO much better."

"Please don't tell me you had sex with my father."

Tony can't tell, but he thinks she's blushed. "I didn't bring you here to talk about that. You're the future; not your father. And with luck, you'll be the best part of my future."

"Isn't that Stark Industries? Or better yet, Project War Machine, or whatever it's called?"

She giggles. "Oh, Tony, you're just like your dad. You don't know the first thing about women...and yet, you always get lucky with them."

She sticks Tony in her bra. Her boob is huge, and VERY ebony. He's hard. Against her boob, she smiles, as she can tell.

"War Machine's going great," she tells him. "Thanks for asking."

"Shouldn't we be doing something about Stane? We can't have him controlling the company..."

"Tony? I don't want to talk about work. I want to talk about you. I've been waiting for a chance to flirt with you since forever."

She lumbers downstairs. Her boobs jiggle as she does. Tony clings to her bra, and tries not to fall.

Tony enjoys this just as much-if not more-than his lovesick hostess. He sure didn't shrink himself to get fucked by a black woman...but he knows he's going to enjoy it while it lasts...IF it lasts...

Ms. Pearson really has waited a long time to hit on Tony in private. Tony can tell, by the what she does to him next.

When it's over, she drops him back into her jewelry box, and leaves the lid open a crack. Tony watches through the crack as she undresses for the night.

At long last, she's in bed. Tony can hear her sleep.

Tony imagines that if he tries to call his glider again, it won't come. It probably got destroyed when she caught him. Crap. Tony's going to have to find another way back to his mansion.

He has no doubt that he can. He's a mechanic, after all; he fixes things.

He digs through the jewelry, trying to find something to climb out of the box with. It's not that he doesn't love Ms. Pearson's company; far from it. But somehow, he's got to get back to Su Yin and tell her he's alright. He also can't wait to get back to lying with beautiful girls in his room every now and then...

Something happens at the bottom of her jewelry box. Tony's lost his sense of direction. He starts falling. He flails to grab onto something...but nothing offers itself to him.

He lands in a green canyon. On either side, the walls are sloped, and dome-shaped.

Before Tony, the plain is long and flat. There's a crater far from where he stands. And there's a giant pair of green women's legs beyond the crater. Now that Tony's stopped falling, all he's got to do is...

Tony hesitates. He looks around. As far as women are concerned, he dreads that he's fallen out of the frying pan, and into the...swamp. He probably shouldn't dread it, though; he loves women, and he loves breasts...and this woman, whoever she is, has got more than her fair share of fat on them.

Not as much as he'd like, though. But then, when you're the size of a mite, everything's big, right?

Tony looks around. He sees a window, and looks through it. There's no sun. Only dark clouds, and a lit black hole offering light to the planet below.

Tony gapes; his legs tremble. He's fallen through a wormhole to another world.

He hears a soft noise. He looks around. He and the green woman whose breasts he's canyoneering have been joined by a strange man. His skin is black, and his ears are pointed and drooping...like some kind of dark elf.

He looks towards her. Tony creeps back into Boob Canyon, and dreads the worst.

Malekith creeps towards her. He smiles down upon her, and caresses her black hair with his dark long-nailed hand.

Tony dares not breathe. That's a very tall and very scary-looking dark elf high over him.

"Sleep, my most dangerous Zen-Whoberi in the galaxy," he whispers. "When you wake, we will have much trade to discuss."

With that, he leaves her, by vanishing into a black cloud. Less deliberately, he leaves Tony too.

If Tony was in a tight spot before, it just got tighter. And he'd understand just how much, if he knew whose boobs he was holing up in between...


	8. Chapter 8

Gamora's body is huge...and green. At least with She-Hulk, Tony can tell she's never this calm when she's green.

Tony can't help but notice the excess of iron/steel objects in this room...or anywhere else on Svartalfheim, for that matter. He'd say he's found a planet populated by kindred spirits...if they were bigger...and if it was all gold-titanium instead of actual iron/steel.

At long last, Gamora wakes. She looks around. She smiles. She adjusts her top, and rises.

Tony's hiding in her top. He nearly falls from his mount, on her breasts, when she does so.

She stretches, still smiling. She looks out the window. Outside, a lot of castle staff can see her hot body. Not that they should know it when they see it; they're dark elves, and she's a Zen-Whoberi.

But then, no one ever told Star-Lord that. He's a human, and he's loved her.

Tony's a human. And as small and young as he is, and as tiny as his dick is, he must confess that Gamora's worth fighting a war for.

The window transforms into a mirror. Gamora stretches her back, and spins in a circle, admiring herself. No doubt about it, captivity has not made a dumbo octopus out of her. Those dark elves really know how to keep reality warped...

And, she sees the speck on her bra. She smiles, and pinches it between her fingers.

Tony clings to her bra, and tries to resist. But Gamora's the most dangerous woman in the universe, and her grip does not disappoint that label. She pulls him off, holds her over her head, and peers at him with her dominant eye. She re-adjusts her top, and smiles.

"Unusual stalker," she admits. "You're cute."

"Please don't tell them I'm here," Tony begs. "They're scary."

"Aw, this is just them being them. But yes, I will keep you safe. They're good boys, but...there are just some things I don't trust them with. And the welfare of cute boys is DEFINITELY at the top of that list."

"You're," Tony stammers, "you're hot. Where do you come from?"

Gamora sighs. "I came from somewhere once. But not anymore. Now it's just a pile of asteroids strewn across space in an alternate reality; Earth-7528, I do believe is the allocation they've given it...or, _Zen-Whoberi_-7528, rather."

Tony barely reacts. "I'm sorry. I can imagine that's hard. You don't have to talk about it if it hurts."

Gamora smiles. "You're right. I don't." She stuffs him back into her bra cup. "You can stay in there, but don't be a bad boy. I've a feeling the dark elves are already plotting too much of that."

Tony's confused. Being stuffed into a hot woman's bra is addling enough. And yet, she's been described as the most dangerous woman in the galaxy. If that were the case, why is she letting tiny boys ride around in one of her most sacred spots?

Something's going on here. And Tony DOESN'T mean Gamora's figure...as much as he wishes he did.


	9. Chapter 9

This is a volcano. Near its base, Stark International, still under Stane's leadership, works on a project.

Ramona Napier is out here. She's an officer of Stark International. She's out here with a strange earth-lover named Jonathan Darque. Like Tony, he has a pure passion for exosuits.

And there's a local here, by the name of Ibrahim Burujirdi. He's concerned for the welfare of his people.

If Darque is, he doesn't do much to prove it. Ms. Napier does a little more, but not enough to ease Mr. Burujirdi's insecurities. They both assure the locals that if Project Magma works-and it will, they're sure of it-soon that volcano will be a dead nightmare of their past. The only difference the locals will know is the casualty count of a casual eruption-if there's ever been one.

Out here, Darque runs his own mining company, which Stark International has invested in. He owes most of his company's success to his inventor, Doctor Harvey Allen.

Most of the time, Dr. Allen wears a blindfold. He's blind. But that hasn't kept him from inventing some of the coolest tech ever used in mining...and then some. He seems to have an almost-dangerous obsession with bo staves...which worries Ms. Napier, somewhat.

In a corner, an android stands, collecting data and weaving it into many, many possibilities. Darque and Dr. Allen call this robot JULIUS, or the Mad Thinker.

Here and there, now and then, JULIUS becomes Dr. Allen's eyes. Allen seems obsessed with balance...a trait that his peers have mistaken for sloth.

As amused as Mr. Burujirdi is by this tech, he's worried about how much it costs. He reminds Mr. Darque that most of his people don't have fortunes to spend on new amendments to their lives.

"First," Darque tells him, "we finish perfecting what we create. Then, we talk about pricing. And you're absolutely right; we can't make money where our customers can't purchase. And for that reason, we will need to import a specialist," he winks, "to assess your worth."

"I appreciate that," Burujirdi admits. "I hate pork barrels just as much as politicians should."

"Stark tech is no pork barrel shipment, Mr. Burujirdi," Darque assures him. "My colleagues and I work WAY too hard to refute THAT ridiculous allegation."

By night, the volcano rumbles. On some spots of it, a red glow can be seen. Mt. Bhutto is FAR from retirement. And the locals, if not Stark International Persia, know it.

From her window, a girl watches. Her name is Benazir. She senses that something isn't right. And she dreads that if something isn't done soon, her people will pay the price.


	10. Chapter 10

Back in Svartalfheim, the dark elves gather iron. They are hopeless subjects of their greedy and envious king's influence.

Gamora pays her king, as she sees him, a visit. Little Tony doesn't know her well enough to tell, but Malekith's got her under some kind of spell.

Malekith sits on the throne in his court. He seems bored. He usually is. One would think that the throne would be enough to sate a man's boredom for a lifetime; but some men, and dark elves alike, just can't stop at becoming king.

The dark elves know that Asgard protects them...but they shouldn't. Now they want to rule the Nine Realms more than they want to just rule Svartalfheim.

Gamora bows before Malekith. He smiles, stands, and descends the steps leading up to his throne.

"Rise, O Requiem," he says. "We've much to plot."

Gamora stands, staggering. Inside her bra, little Tony still hides/is kept sexual prisoner.

Again, if Tony knew Gamora, he'd know she NEVER staggers...

"Your world fascinates me, O King. Your subjects have some of the greatest vision I've seen in all the universe."

Malekith approaches her, and places his hand against her face. Gamora barely reacts. She only bats her eyes, and smiles back at him. If anyone else looked her in the eye, they wouldn't know the Most Dangerous Woman in the Galaxy.

Tony hides beneath her bra. He'd hate for Malekith to think he's more than a bug...or that a bug's rightful place is atop the boob of a beautiful green woman.

"I urge you not to grow roots here, O Sweet Requiem," his Majesty says. "There is much iron mongering in the universe that needs doing. My people will need you to blaze the trails. Our pillaging will not be met without opposition."

"I'm not sure. I'm out of practice, when it comes to fighting and killing..."

"You will find a way, O Gamora. I believe in you."

Gamora smiles. "Your confidence flatters and empowers me, O King of Svartalfheim."

Gently, Malekith pins her hair behind her ears. He smiles at her, while beholding her.

"Such beauty and elegance," he admits. "I absolutely loathe the bastard who robbed you and your glamorous race of their home and world."

Gamora smiles coyly, and bends her legs several times. "That'd be my Titan adoptive father, actually."

In her chambers, Gamora and Tony play chess. On Svartalfheim, the chess pieces are basalt and obsidian; obsidian always moves first. And Tony plays obsidian. He's never played chess with a green goddess before...but he must confess that this is funner than having girls stay the night in his bedroom behind Su Yin's back.

The chess pieces move themselves, on their players' command. The horse heads of the knights are creepier-looking. And the bishops are red mystical blobs...that might be mini-portals to other worlds. It's been rumored, around Svartalfheim, that when Malekith plays this game, he substitutes one of his bishops, or whatever they're called here, with his Spectral ring.

Like a bug, Tony wanders among the titanic chess pieces, as they move around the board. He feels like Alice in _Through the Looking Glass_.

Gamora's hair is tied on both sides of her head, in dual ponytails. She smiles, and tilts her head as she props it up; again, no one who knows her would know her.

"I played this game with my father once," Gamora says, smiling. "He won."

"I played the Earth version of this game with my father once," Tony says, avoiding getting trampled by one of Gamora's knights. "I won. A few months later I played it with Mr. Stane, my father's old vice president. He won."

"Do you play this game often in your world?"

"Not as much as Mr. Stane does. Yeah, I imagine he's a real grandmaster at it by now. I play it every now and then; the game is still fun, no matter how old it gets, and," he sighs, "no matter how much Mr. Stane keeps bragging about his own chess trophies. It's like the Rubik's cube."

"We don't have that game where I come from. My adoptive father isn't much of a games titan...although he does enjoy PT-and I do mean the intense kind."

"My father knew a few men like that. And I'm often afraid that Mr. Stane does too...only more than Dad did, if you know what I mean."

"This Mr. Stane you speak of; is he a bad man? He sure sounds like he is."

"He calls himself the Iron Monger. And I don't think he always jokes when he does."

Gamora sighs. "The dark elves here do too...both of those things. This Mr. Stane of yours would fit right in here. Is he a dark elf, like King Malekith?"

"No, but I wish he was. I'd lock him up on a spacecraft and send him here."

They keep playing. Tony forces her king into a corner, and mates with him.

(That's a checkmating; not...the other thing...)

The board clears itself. Tony keeps his wary eye on the chess "bishops"...

"You're smart," Gamora tells him. "I wish I could take you with me to...wherever King Malekith says we should go."

"I've got to find a way back to my planet. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I can't let Stane turn my father's legacy into a weapon."

"I know you will. You're smart...unlike me."

She holds out her green hand. He climbs into it. She stands, and retires to her bedroom.

In the bucket next to the chessboard, some of the chess pieces twitch. It's as if they're animated, or something...

On a couch, Gamora sleeps. It sure is comfy.

As the green woman sleeps, tiny Tony makes his exit. He descends the couch leg, and goes looking for the chess pieces.

He creeps down a hall. It's big. He's small. He's like a bug on the floor...

Someone comes. Tony flattens himself against a baseboard.

At the end of the hall, a file of dark elf warriors march past. They carry spears, and wear iron sabatons. Dark elves wearing iron; no good can come from this. Tony waits for them to pass.

Halfway to the room in which he and Gamora played chess, he stumbles upon a mouse hole. Thinking it might be a shortcut, Tony takes it.

And, he's falling through a cloudy and silent shadow again. With luck, he won't end up in a world even farther from Midgard than Svartalfheim...


	11. Chapter 11

In Persia, a girl, Benazir, looks out her window, at the volcano. She sees it much, and she worries about it much.

Her hair is long, wavy, and brown. She flaps it as she looks around.

She walks around in the xeriscaping around her home. Many desert flowers, shrubs, and herbs grow here. She'll miss all of these if something were to ever happen to her home. For that reason, she's usually out here a lot...just as long as she knows there are people working at the mines, and Stark Persia, who're up to no good.

Uptown, there's a light tank parked just outside the bank. It's starting to worry some of the locals; it's been there for days...

In a shed outside Benazir's house, a dryer is just about done drying clothes. And there are a lot, for the two women in the family...

While still in progress, the load gets just a tad bigger, as a portal opens inside it. For this, Tony's glad he's only in a pair of briefs.

The bell rings. Benazir's mother arrives, opens the dryer, and dumps the clothes into a basket.

Inadvertently, she dumps Tony, too. He's hiding in one of the bras.

Benazir reluctantly helps her mother fold clothes. Far below, Tony's both relieved and scared; Benazir's his age.

Benazir hesitates. One of her panties pairs is missing. She asks her mother about it. Her mother only shrugs.

Back on Svartalfheim, Malekith wanders down the hall. He stops by the mouse hole Tony inadvertently escaped through.

He sees something. He picks it up. It's a pair of girl's panties. He stretches them. He flops them around in his clawed hand. He scratches his head.

"How in Hel did THESE get here? Zen-Whoberi, are these yours?"

Gamora, still in twin ponytails, takes them in her hands, and studies them. She shrugs too. "They aren't mine. You're not _divorced_, are you?"

He stares at her, through red-glowing eyes.


	12. Chapter 12

At another Stark International facility, another project is being worked on. The Whiplash is about to be born...

In the latest edition of the Whiplash armor, Marco Scarlotti practices with his electrified whip. He surrounds himself with wine bottles filled with nitro-glycerin. He electrifies the whip, and strikes each bottle. Each one blows up in front of him.

From a box above the arena, an officer of Stark International, Vicki Snow, watches. She twirls her red bob, and bites her big lips.

As much as she envies how far this project has gone, she worries for Marco's welfare. He's spent way too much time testing these Whiplash suits...

The posts automatically replace the blown-up bottles with new fresh nitro-glycerin filled ones. Marco goes several rounds, with no apparent intent to slow down or quit...

A telecommunications device, in the box, rings. Ms. Snow addresses it. It's Mr. Stane. According to him, Stark International is in new need for the Whiplash's services.

Ms. Snow holds a mike up to her mouth, taps it with her polished finger, and gets Marco's attention. He stops whipping. Around his head, his visor vanishes. He stares up at her.

"Mr. Scarlotti," she stammers, "Mr. Stane might have a job for you. You're needed in Persia."

Marco sighs, and flashes his electrified whip, without looking. Another bottle of nitro-glycerin blows up.


	13. Chapter 13

Tanks roam all over Persia, on patrol. They aim to protect Persia with everything they have.

In the skies above Darque's mine, Mad Thinker test-flies his many androids. They're getting better...at everything.

Darque's been gone a lot. And he's always taken one of his Magma suits with him...

Benazir's mother, Lubaba Bultossa, is a black Semite. She's also hot. She takes a nap, and sleeps on her back, TOPLESS. Little Tony, at the size of a mite, has found his way under her legs...which she keeps bent and at-ease as she sleeps.

At the base of her ass, Tony looks around and up. He gapes up at her ass cheeks. They're like cliffs...as her panties are like a canvas one. It's going to take him a VERY long time to climb one of them.

He starts. It is a very long climb. He just ADORES her ebony skin. It's hard to believe she's a Semite, and not a pure Nilo-Saharan, or Niger-Congo...

She should have a Star of David tattooed on one of her ass cheeks. But then, how'd it be visible?

He can't tell if she's got ass wings. He doubts it...but she might...

Tony keeps climbing. He's surprised Ms. Bultossa hasn't tried to brush him away yet...or crush him between her upper legs...

Her panties have almost ended. Before him, a vast plain of skin between her panties waist and her navel waits for him to cross...or run around on. He'd prefer the latter. So, wary of her hand if she tries to brush him away, he does.

She doesn't feel him. Tony never knew being insignificant could be so much fun...or steamy...

From her navel, it's a long way to her boobs. In moments like these, he'd wish he had his suit...but then he wouldn't get to savor every nth-inch of her nude front...

He braves the journey. For most of it, he doesn't need bravery. He just needs an open pair of eyes. Her skin is SO ebony, and his is SO clear...

He gets to her boobs. To him, it's like he's at the base of a mountain. Somehow, he starts climbing the one over her heart. It's a very long climb, and the constant thumping of her heart-which is possibly caffeine-spiked-causes minor tremors across it.

Far away and far beneath, below the nearby volcano, Magma is scuba-diving in magma, looking for something. His teammates can't imagine how he can see anything down there...although it makes a little more sense to them how the magma doesn't melt his suit, or him.

A LITTLE more sense, understand...

The New Mutants have someone named Magma. But again, she's a mutant, and not someone who wears a magma-proof exosuit...

Ms. Bultossa rests topless. She moans securely in her sleep, unaware that there's a bug-sized white boy climbing on her left boob as if it were a mountain.

Farther away, Ms. Bultossa rubs her thighs together. In her rest, she draws circles around her navel with her index finger. And she giggles. She likes having Tony on her boob; Tony can tell...

Her lips are huge. Tony wouldn't mind seeing those up close, either...

The door creaks open. Tony freezes, and his own heart does in his chest...

Benazir creeps in. To Tony, she too is titanic. But at least she's more in line with Tony's generation. He wonders if she can see him...or what she'll do if she can...


	14. Chapter 14

This is a barren planet. It's in the same galaxy as Svartalfheim.

But at least there's iron. There are entire deserts full of it. You can't see it, but it's locked up in all the land. With that said, it's a mystery as to how the Dark Elves have known about this planet all along and not collected its treasures sooner.

The Svartalfr space fleet is in orbit around Planet 26. Its scouts search the surface.

Still serene, Gamora works out, hums happy tunes, and prepares to do the job Malekith brought her out here to do. She'll need all of her strength, if there's so much as one foe down there who won't let the Dark Elves have their precious iron.

She misses Tony. But then, what woman wouldn't?

Her hair is still tied in dual ponytails. At least she's still green.

She stands before a mirror, and shakes her own rack, jiggling it. She giggles, closes her eyes, and smiles.

Behind her, the door creaks open. Moments pass before she discerns that she's being watched.

She opens her eyes, and looks into the mirror. She sees two people in it; one's behind her.

"Pardon the interruption," Malekith tells her. "I've come to bring you great relief."

Gamora adjusts her bra, in shock. "How DARE you come into my room!"

"Need I not remind you, Zen-Whoberi, that you are a guest among us. Everything we accommodate you with belongs to us."

"That doesn't give you the right to trespass a naked woman's privacy!"

"Our scouts have scoured 26's surface. We are all eager to do what we came here for."

"Great! Just sit tight up here, and I'll have a billion asses whooped in no time!"

She starts to leave. Malekith, alas, flashes his staff, and stops her.

"Or none," he reports. "There are no security systems down there. The planet is barren. There is no trail for you to blaze."

Gamora gapes. "You mean you brought me all the way out here for nothing?!"

"It was unforeseeable. We will compensate you, first opportunity."

"I don't want compensation! I want to whoop some asses!"

"We, too, wish it was necessary. If you must attack anyone, I will arrange for you to slaughter any number of our kind on our way back to Svartalfheim."

Gamora sighs. "Don't bother. I'll manage...somehow." She beams, and waves goodbye. "Have fun storming Planet 26!"

Malekith scoffs. "_Princess Bride_ references. Will my people ever be free of them?!"

From the capital spaceships, smaller craft descend from them, like breeding aphids, and descend towards the planet's surface. On the surface, they land far apart. Using an illusory device, they imagine the surrounding air into a breathable substance. (Iron and oxygen don't mix; the atmosphere here lacks enough of it.)

Everywhere, all over, Dark Elves take up shovels, drills, picks, bulldozers, and subterrenes, and harvest the planet's number one resource. With luck, they'll be here for too long.


	15. Chapter 15

Dripping with magma, Magma surfaces from the volcano. He lands on the crater's edge, and takes a breath.

His helmet vanishes. Darque pants, and stares down into the crater. He's seen a lot down there. And he's seen more than enough of what Stane's hired him to collect.

At his mining company, the war council meets: Darque, Mad Thinker, Elder, and Scarlotti. They've found what they've come for. Now they have to take it. And they'll have to take it without getting caught.

Via a videophone, they communicate with Stane. Via the gauntlet of his exosuit, Darque presents samples of what he's found just under Old Persia's crust.

Stark International needs more of it for its arsenal, Stane tells them. It remains crucial that no one find out of its destructive potential as Stark International exploits it.

Scarlotti admits that that'll be hard to do.

Stane loses his temper, and insists that they kill anyone who might not keep quiet if they find out. But they must kill them BEFORE they harvest the subterranean crop; otherwise, they might not be able to stop them before they tell the Persian government...or someone more dangerous.

Mad Thinker chuckles, and reminds Stane that there IS no one more dangerous than them.

"We always think that," Stane reminds them. "We're always wrong. I will NOT screw this up. And if any of you valued your careers, or your lives, you won't either."

With that, Stane hangs up. His sidekicks sigh, and return to their jobs.


	16. Chapter 16

Across Planet 26, the dark elves continue to mine for iron. Across its surface, they've dug up many craters, and tunneled many shafts.

They gather the ore, and using their abilities, they imagine each rock into pure iron. It's hard for them...but then, so is extracting the damn crap.

Malekith and Gamora walk around, patrolling for danger. Malekith doesn't think it's necessary...then again, he suspects that it is...

"Something is not right," Malekith admits. "I know that this planet is here. I know we've never exploited it. And yet, I'd think that if the universe knew of our thirst for iron, someone would keep us from having this planet to ourselves."

Gamora giggles. "Come on, your Majesty. Who're you afraid of? Thor? Odin? Time-displaced Bor? Time-displaced younger Odin? Ego?"

"I know not who, or why. My dark intuition is seldom ever wrong."

"And yet...you're risking a lot of your people's lives just to be out here. What gives? I know kings are supposed to be risk-takers, but this feels extreme. Not that I'm criticizing you." She pinches his bicep. "I love a man who takes chances." She flaps her ponytails. "I'm not so fond about a man who brings me all the way out here just to protect iron miners, but with luck, we'll be past that in no time!"

"There will be other worlds to get this precious substance from," Malekith reminds her. "Some will have threats on them for you to deal with. Others will not. You will have to brave the inconveniences of the ones on which there will be none." He stops, turns to her, and holds her hands. "We will be counting on you to whatever end, Gamora of the Zen-Whoberis."

Gamora sighs, but nods happily in agreement..."to whatever end."

They stand there, for a long time, as if petrified. They stare into each other's eyes.

Moments pass. It becomes apparent that they're not lost in each other...as initial appearances would suggest.

Dust is rising from the sandy ground. Speaking of the ground, it's vibrating beneath Malekith's and Gamora's feet. And it feels like its frequency is getting higher.

All around, cracks open in the planet's surface. Rocks fall into them. In some places, entire hills fall into them.

A crack forms between where Malekith and Gamora stand. Here, they let go of one another. Malekith soon wishes he hadn't. The crack separates him from Gamora, and takes him farther away from her.

All over the planet, some of the dark elf mining teams fall into the cracks as well. Those who haven't quickly scurry back into their respective crafts, and levitate back into orbit.

Alone on an island surrounded by chasms, Malekith makes contact with the flagship, and asks what's visible from above. They tell him that this is the only part of the planet that's being affected by this tremor.

Near a spreading chasm, Gamora struggles to avoid a breakdown. She avoids it for as long as she can...and then, she unravels.

The color in her eyes changes. She looks around at everything in disgust, as she did before Malekith kidnapped her. She flexes her muscles. She rips the braids from both of her ponytails, letting her hair down.

"Malekith," she growls. "I swear I'll kill you, you son of a..."

She's distracted by a huge shape rising in the distance. It rises from the earth, and is what's causing the earth to divide.

"Bitch," Gamora finishes her sentence, less flustered than before, as she stares at what rises in awe. "What have you and your creepy elf subjects done here, Malekith?"

An android rises from the earth. He's very big. He's not a Decepticon. He's not Galactus. And he sure as hell isn't a Celestial. But he's over 175 meters tall.

He looks primitive...for a human. For a robot, he hardly looks like one at all. His eyes give him away, as does half his face. Some other small parts of his human-like concealment are missing as well, here and there all over his exterior.

He rises from the sand. He blinks his robotic eyes. They see, and analyze, MUCH more than what his Stone Age human counterpart sure would...normal-sized or gargantuan.

He knows the elves are here. He's not sure what he should do. On one hand, he should thank them for freeing him. OTOH, he should punish them for waking him.

Ah, screw it; he'll do half of both. He stands, swings his arm around, and reaches for something.

From the soil, a monument-sized mace rises. Iron soil flows, and later trickles, off it. It rotates to a vertical position, and levitates into its partner's grasp. Now armed, and more dangerous, Gargantus must slaughter half of the dark elves in droves.

Gamora shouldn't do this; but she might die if she doesn't. She super-runs and super-leaps across the sandy plain, and attacks the titanic android with her green fists.

She hits Gargantus in the center of his forehead-like David's smooth stone into Goliath's. Gargantus roars in pain, and in frustration.

From orbit, Malekith watches, via an illusion he casts. With luck, Gamora will buy his people some time as they evacuate the planet. Without it, Gamora is outgunned, and Gargantus will soon come after his people in orbit; Malekith doesn't doubt he can. Leaving orbit might or might not slow him down; returning to Svartalfheim might or might not lead him to destroy the dark elves' home planet.

Around Malekith's neck, a pendant, that's shaped like a sword hilt, hangs. Malekith grasps it, as he watches Gamora try to behead the mega-android, one robotic wire at a time...

She tunnels into the mega-machine's forehead. There's so much in there, and Gamora has barely built a cave. Progress seems to get harder as she goes along. She can't expect to have the upper hand indefinitely...

At great expense to himself, Gargantus reaches into his own head, pinches Gamora between two of his fingers, and rips her out. She thrashes and yells; but again, she's outgunned.

Once he's got her out of his head, literally, he doesn't bother to inspect her. She's robbed her of half his vision; it'll recover in her absence. He closes his eyes, yells, and chambers his arm back, with her trapped in his fist. Gamora struggles to escape, but this android's hand is the steel she never hoped to get trapped in.

He throws her. She flies far, across the sky. She isn't slowing down, or falling. Gamora fears he's just thrown her into space.

She's flying towards a dark elf spacecraft, who's trying to join its brothers in orbit. Something aboard senses Gamora's trajectory, and opens a portal. Gamora screams as she flies through it. Behind her, the portal closes.

Inside, the dark elves look around outside. They heard her scream, but are too late to see from whence it came.

Alas, the portal has drawn Gargantus's eye. He sees the craft. Aboard, the dark elves try to put more power in the thrusters, and get into orbit faster; none of them are sure if that'll work. Some of the stronger ones try to teleport into orbit; but it turns out none of this do this so well while scared-or when they have to teleport more than just themselves.

Gargantus super-leaps. The craft's thrusters burn as brightly as they can. Orbit is still very far away. The craft's crew is doomed...as is all of the iron aboard it's harvested.

Airborne, Gargantus's open hand closes in on the craft. It closes in around it...

Far away, on the moon Titan, the abandoned cities are deserted. From most places on half its surface, the many rings of the planet Saturn can be seen...as can much of Saturn itself.

Over one of these cities, a portal opens. Gamora falls through it, still screaming and spinning.

She flies through several towers. She gets tangled up in a flag before skidding through several rows of seats that surround a sports arena. She flies over a rail, and lands in the arena's center. She's still tangled in the flag.

She's shocked the flag is still there. And then she remembers that the Titans died because of overpopulation, and not because the Kree Empire attacked them...

She'd know...better than she'd prefer, at that. Her adoptive father once lived here...back when he wasn't an endling.

She only takes a moment to regather her strength. Then, she rises, rips through the flag, and screams in rage.

On the upside, she's free. On the downside, she needs help. And she hates needing help. Although...she's having VERY pleasant memories of a certain tiny human male she once befriended, when she caught him sneaking around in her rack like a bug...

It's a long shot...but at least she's now in the same solar system as him. All she's got to do is improvise a spacecraft that can take her that far...

Easier said than done, it seems. Most of the technology on this planet is SO last-millennium...for a Titan, that is...


	17. Chapter 17

All around Old Persia, Mad Thinker's android air force is on the offensive. It's attacking cops and warriors alike; anyone who'd try to stop them from sating Iron Monger's demands.

Elsewhere in Old Persia, Whiplash does the same thing to higher-ranking targets. Politicians are slaughtered via his electrified whips; many while stooping before their families. For some, their families watch helplessly as their patriarchs are literally decapitated. For others, their families are already dead before they're killed; Whiplash and his sentries force them to watch their families get slaughtered in their own homes.

Through a video camera in Whiplash's chest, Vicki Snow watches. She can't help but cry as she watches her boyfriend slaughter Persian officials and their families. She loves her boyfriend...but she isn't sure if she should codepend him when he does things like this. She isn't sure, but she suddenly has a whispering hunch that Howard Stark would never have asked one of his employees to do this sort of thing for the sake of money.

Far away, Stane watches the war footage on a news TV channel. He smiles; his sidekicks are doing more than he's asked of them.

What's even better, Howard Stark isn't here to stop him. He never paid to have him killed; although he can't really say that his life has gotten worse since his workplace's founder bit the dust.

Satisfied with how it's going over there, he gets on the phone. It's about time, he thinks, that he called his Chessmen to arms...

By night, Magma dives beneath Persia's surface. There's a whole gold mine beneath the country. And nobody up there suspects. And most Persians are, perhaps, SO ignorant of the everyday problems they could solve with just five grams of it...

But then, as far as Stane is concerned, that's exactly the burden of harvesting it should fall on Stark International's shoulders, and not Old Persia's. Besides, they've already got their hands full pathetically defending themselves from Mad Thinker and Whiplash...

Magma gathers it, and brings it to a portal in the Earth's crust. There, Mole Man collects it. He, then, takes it to the surface, in a warehouse. Here, he stores it. Stark International has custom-made bins for the occasion.

For this, Mole Man also uses a powerful ring of his; the Daemonic Ring. He wears it on his left thumb. It bears a sole white jewel. It lights up with bright white light when he uses it.

With his ring, Mole Man overpowers the element, for storage, with an overdose of its photo-genesis powers. He also overpowers its imbalanced magnetism with an overdose of the ring's magnetism-control powers. NOW the element's ready for storage. Like a mole with much to hoard, Mole Man stores the element, which Stark International is calling iron-216, properly.

The fronts of the warehouses are locked. Iron Monger's conspiracy is trusting them to keep everyone out.

In the Persian desert, it's another cold night. A seldom wolf howls.

A vehicle teleports into the Earth's atmosphere. It doesn't take long to lose control. It glides to the ground, lands, skids, and gets ripped apart fast. It leaves a furrow across the desert plain.

A corsac fox creeps forward, and sniffs the furrow the spacecraft's left in the land. Stealthily, it follows the furrow to where the rest of the spacecraft virtually lies in a heap of scrap metal; that's virtually what remains of it.

He gets too close. He sniffs. It smells interesting. He slithers in annoying circles around, as if he can't figure out...

A long blade appears from out of nowhere, and decapitates him. His body falls to the ground, VERY dead...

In goat-steps, a big strong green woman emerges from the wreckage. It ain't Jennifer Walters; she's from outer space. She sighs, rubs her eyes with one fist, and cleans her blade with the other. She admires her own reflection in it.

Gamora grabs the headless fox by the tail, and a bag of mineral fuel from the spacecraft's cargo hold. It's been a long flight, and she needs some grub.

She roasts the fox, and eats its extra-red meat right off its bones. She finds Earth meat VERY memorable. She doesn't know why she doesn't make more trips to Planet C53, as the Kree and Xandarians classify it. Then again, she'll probably learn the answer once she's up against too many of them...

She gets some rest. One of her many blades tells her that she's got a LONG way to go, come dawn...


	18. Chapter 18

With tiny Tony in her sweet-smelling hand, Benazir proceeds down the hall. She caught him messing with her mother, true enough...but with luck, she thinks she understands what he desires...and that he might not have to go all the way to older women to get it...as tempted as he is sometimes...

Around Tony, her hand is like a plain. And yet, the ground shifts beneath him. And over the palm of her hand, it's a long fall for him. Her fingers are like jagged cliffs that slope upwards...

She takes him to her room. She sets him on the windowsill. Together, they look outside. She can see the volcano from here.

Tony asks about it. She sighs, and tells him. She worries about it; they all do. And that was easier when the Stark International businessmen hadn't come to exploit either them, or something in the volcano, or both.

Tony looks up at her. He demands to know what his father's company has been doing out here, and with a volcano in Old Persian jurisdiction.

Benazir shrugs her huge bare shoulders, and confesses her ignorance, and that the rest of the community seems to share it. But they have gotten something from the volcano; the few people who're around here at night, her included, have seen a man in an exosuit carrying something out of the volcano, and some sort of subterranean human scurrying from here to there-stumbling, sometimes-with his arms laden with the same element...strange and subterranean as it is...

Tony nods, and studies it all. He might or might not find that hard to do with a gorgeous Persian giantess leaning against the window near him.

She fetches a hairbrush, and brushes her long straight raven hair. Tony feels so insignificant in the presence of her magnificence...

Tony thinks about it. He thinks he knows who the man in the exosuit is...and while he can believe it, he never thought his career would come down to this. OTOH, Tony was pre-pubescent when he first heard of Darque, and therefore didn't question Darque's motives as much... Tony even dared idolize him, for his ability to swim in the Earth's mantle without melting to death...

Tony will have to look into what Darque's up to. But how to do that without a suit?

He tells Benazir that he needs her help. He needs to spy on Darque, and whoever that blind subterranean ninja is.

Benazir sighs happily, lets her hair down, and stretches. She highlights her boobs...which are now mountainous to Tony. She intimidates Tony. But of course, Tony isn't naive to tell any babe, no matter how busty or thick, how he feels about them...

She'll help him. But first, they've barely gotten to know each other. She needs him to stay for a bit. Plus, she really feels like she can get things from Tony that she can't get from random local Persian boys...most of whom haven't even been through puberty yet.

Tony swallows hard. He isn't sure, but he sure doesn't feel like promising Benazir that he's been through puberty...because he already struggles to promise that to himself...

Alas, Darque and Elder are going to have to wait. If Tony thought he had any business to, he'd dread how much damage Darque and Elder, and whoever they've recruited to their cause, can cause in three days...if they haven't already...


	19. Chapter 19

These are warehouses. In them, Stark International (i.e. Stane) keeps the Mystery Element from just beneath the Earth's crust that Mole Man and Magma have been hoarding for them, in exchange for Whiplash's and Mad Thinker's protection...

The place seems very secure...for a facility in Old Persia. But then, the Persian Empire was once so secure, it ruled Israel. And even then, most of the Jews had IQs that made all the Persians look like simurghs. (A mythical creature not known for its omniscience, in case you'd wonder.)

Alas, this compound will have visitors tonight. Here and there, portals appear in and within the fences. The security guards never suspect a thing. From behind them, svartálfar appear from portals, draw Kursed knives, and impale them from behind.

Warping reality, the svartálfar phase through the warehouse walls, walking through them as if they weren't there. Looking up, they surround racks and racks, stocked with tubes and tubes of the Mystery Element.

Through another portal, Malekith arrives. On his right ring finger, he wears the Mandarin's Spectral Ring. Its gem gleams, like a golden square...and looks great against Malekith's otherwise dark elven skin...

Using their elven magic, the svartálfar vanish many of these tubes. They've out-maneuvered Gargantus for now...alas, none of them are sure for how long...

Outside, Stane's henchmen arrive. Magma, Whiplash, and several of Mad Thinker's androids arrive, and land in certain places, between the warehouses. Over the fence, Mad Thinker arrives in a hoverchair. He wears a helmet, which gives him psionic weapons to spare...no rhyme intended.

Mole Man uncovers a manhole from beneath, and surfaces, armed with his staff and wearing a blindfold around what would be his eyes...if he had so much as sockets. Many are glad he doesn't. Stealthily, he joins the ranks of his fellow henchmen.

He, too, wears a Mandarin Ring. It's on his left thumb, and it's the Daimonic Ring. The gem is two white circles; they resemble eyes. Ironic; for once, its wearer is blind.

Whiplash electrifies his whip, and slashes it around. He leaves blackened scars on the pavement.

From his hoverchair, Mad Thinker remains silent, but activates a bullhorn inside one of his androids. "COME OUTSIDE WITH YOUR ARMS DROPPED!"

Inside, the svartálfar freeze. They all turn to their king.

Malekith signals them to keep working. He teleports himself outside, to exchange with Stane's henchmen.

Behind their masks, most of them make gross faces at what Malekith looks like. Mad Thinker, who doesn't wear a mask, does. Lucky for him, an android stands in the formation, in his stead. Mole Man can't see, so he doesn't react.

"I am Malekith," Malekith tells them, "king of the svartálfar of Svartalfheim. We've come to claim the Mystery Element that's in these houses."

"In that case," Magma tells him, "we have a quarrel." He arms the magma cannon in his suit. "We already have a claim to it. And sadly but surely, it isn't our own."

"My people need metal," Malekith insists. "We will take what's here, with or without your consent."

"Well in that case," Mad Thinker rallies his android air force. "Your forces' subduction is in order."

The Mad Thinker androids hover over the warehouse roofs, and blow holes in them. They dive in, and do combat with the svartálfar bandits.

Quickly, the svartálfar warp reality, and turn the androids into a harmless substance; or an amusing one. One of them turns an android into a pile of obsidian pebbles.

Outside, Malekith uses his Spectral ring. He uses it to disintegrate Whiplash, Magma, Mad Thinker, and his remaining androids. They all trickle into gravel-like substances on the pavement. They still look like themselves...only disintegrated.

Malekith tries to do this to Mole Man too...but can't. Mole Man uses his own Daimonic ring to freeze Malekith, ring's power and all, into place. The ring can control, and generate, radiation and electromagnetism. Malekith is amused; but naturally, Mole Man can't hold him in place all night.

So, Mole Man lets him go...but only as a courtesy. They've both just found out, after all, that they wield Mandarin rings.

"To attrition," Malekith asks, "then?"

Mole Man shrugs. "If these rings truly make us worthy of royals," he admits, "then so be it!"

With that, the two men have a duel of rings; Malekith's disintegration vs Mole Man's electromagnetism. It goes on for a while. Around them, Mole Man's accomplices don't recover much...


	20. Chapter 20

On into the night, Mole Man and Malekith duel with their respective Mandarin rings. Around them, Stane's henchmen literally lie in ruins. Inside the warehouses, the Mystery Element is raided, and stolen, by svartálfar bandits, under Malekith's command. This Mandarin-ringed duel looks like it's going to end in stalemate...

Alas, Gamora arrives. She kicks down the gate, and storms through.

She wears a pair of gauntlets...both armed with three of the six Infinity Gems. She's thankful there aren't any security guards to use them on.

Alas, she finds Mole Man and Malekith dueling. Using the Gems to conceal herself, she sneaks up behind Malekith. Using the Power Gem, she tries to shove Malekith into Mole Man. Alas, Malekith's powers make him intangible; she can't.

She grins, uses the Reality Gem, and increases her own density. She tries again; Malekith and Mole Man hit each other in the head, and knock one another out.

With that out of the way, Gamora uses the Infinity Gems to turn everyone in the compound into piles of emeralds. As Malekith turns into a pile of emeralds, he sheds a certain hilt-shaped medallion he's been wearing around his neck for a while...ever since he brainwashed Gamora into protecting him and his kin while harvesting stray worlds of their iron...

Smiling, Gamora salvages this medallion. She rips off the titanium chain it's on, leaves it, holds it, and clears her mind. Without the Infinity Gems, she turns the hilt into a full-bladed sword. Its blade is long, wide, and impressive. It's Gamora's fastest and finest sword.

She looks around, and sighs. She wishes there was someone left she could use it on... Alas, she de-materializes it, and belts it. Using the Infinity Gems, she teleports away, leaving the compound in an emerald-littered mess.

Alas, she comes back. She re-assembles Mad Thinker's androids. She puts them on armed patrol around the compound. She controls them now; not Mad Thinker, who's still in a pile of emeralds, along with his hoverchair.

NOW she teleports away. With luck, the compound will be safe from Gargantus, if he ever comes by here looking for the devious svartálfar who stole from him on Planet 26... Gamora doesn't expect any luck.

Via one of his own androids in the sky, Iron Monger sees the whole thing. Back at Stark International HQ, he deploys an android air force of his own...

One at a time, Mad Thinker's androids break away from Gamora's control over them. They shape-shift, to where they all resemble random chess pieces, save a chess king. They all also change color, to either metallic black or metallic white. All around, they're joined by some of Stane's original inventions...

These are the Chessmen. And they've just retaken what both Malekith and Gamora have tried to steal from him: warehouses upon warehouses of the Mystery Element, which will still go to Stark International (i.e. Stane), for better or for worse...

If Tony was aware of what was happening, he'd gamble on worse...


	21. Chapter 21

This is the planet Rajak. And it seems it has a trespasser.

In one of its cities, this is a mansion. Some smoking-hot women live here.

As dawn breaks, a space-faring human, Peter Quill, tries to sneak out, with many of his clothes in hand. Strangely, he plans to put them on, one at a time, as he stumbles back to his spaceship...

He's almost to the front hatch. He reaches out his hand, as it closes in on the handle...

Above, he hears a shrill scream. Quill sighs, shakes his head...and runs.

He circles the mansion, and runs through the brush, back to his cached spaceship. Some of the local flora is animated...

His Rajak pimp stands on the balcony, and screams in rage. He gave her a good time last night, and now he's leaving.

With a trident in hand, she throws it at Quill. She misses, but she throws more...

Spontaneously, a huge laser hits her mansion, and destroys it in a smoky explosion. Quill stops, and watches. He takes a moment to look for the source. Screw finding it; he probably can't take it on anyway...

A colossal android rampages through the city, scaring all the locals. He's taller than the tallest blocks. With his gaze, he destroys towers with a laser. He's got a lot more where that comes from...

In space, the Confederacy orbits Rajak. Gunships of Kree, Astran, Kallusian, and Remoraths close in on Ultimo's location on Rajak. As the Rajaks are a member nation of the Confederacy, the Confederacy owes them protection. The Rajaks have run the ground team of this offensive...and they have nearly spent most of their resources trying to subdue Ultimo.

So, a Kree gunship glides to the forefront, and aims a pair of missiles at Ultimo. Without bothering to give the city a chance to evacuate, they open fire.

The missiles fly into the atmosphere. They change course while falling, and start spiraling one another, breaking their own falls. Once within range, they both make great circles, staying symmetrical with one another, and target Ultimo. If THIS doesn't kill Ultimo, then...

Telekinetically, Ultimo re-programs the missiles, while they're in flight. They fly right past him, repeat their orbit upwards, and fly right back to their launchers.

Normally, Kree warriors are stone-faced. Alas, they're all gaping right before their own missiles turn their gunship into an ever-scattering pile of space trash.

On the downside, some of the flotsam enters Rajak's atmosphere. On the upside, most of it is so small and innocuous, that it burs to a cinder long before it can hit the ground and risk hurting anyone unlucky enough to be in its way. And, the ashes burn up too. Ultimately, no pun intended, their molecules are mixed up with the atmosphere, and no Rajak gets hurt by the wreckage of a fallen Kree gunship today.

Ultimo continues his rampage, but stops to take a breather. In reality, he hears someone just as big as him approaching. He spins, and tries to defend himself...

It's Gargantus. With his staff, he blocks Ultimo's strike, and reveals who he is, and what he's up to. He might or might not need help. But just in case the Rajaks are too challenging for him, the Svartálfar flock to iron like flies to dead flesh.

Gargantus is after repayment, for every atom of iron they've taken from his precious Planet 26. Fortunately, Gargantus knows of the perfect replacement element; and naturally, he knows where it is, and that the Svartálfar are already there to collect it.

Ultimo admits that while his husk isn't pure iron, (he kicks a Rajak gunslinger away from his foot, and sends him flying into the side of a tank full of flammable fuel, blowing up the tank simultaneously,) he could always use an upgrade to his armor. As strong as these Rajak warriors are, it seems very likely that his armor will need an upgrade soon. Ultimo looks around, and subtly, implores Gargantus not to tell them that he said that.

So, arm-in-arm, Gargantus and Ultimo wander to the nearest spaceport. The Rajaks would be unwise to try to keep them from leaving...but then, now that Gargantus is a foe to be reckoned with, he and Ultimo would have just as much fun beating the shit out of every Rajak sentry who tried to keep them from leaving their planet without paying for all the damage they've done to it.

In his little spaceship, Star-Lord tries to charge Ultimo and Gargantus, with the limited gunnery aboard. With his huge finger, Ultimo merely flicks Star-Lord away like a fly, sending his spacecraft spiraling into the local bay.

Together, they fly into space. Some of the Confederacy pursue them, and open fire on them; the Kree do this the most. Alas, even the Kree are no match for the destructive duo of Gargantus and Ultimo. With that said, Earth will be in trouble, when they get there...

Starforce, an elite Kree spec-ops team, pursues the titanic duo the farthest, long after the rest of their Kree brethren have given up the chase. Alas, their spaceship ends up crashing and burning on the planet Chandilar, home of the Shi'ar race, and HQ of the Shi'ar Empire. On the upside, this part of the planet isn't heavily-inhabited. On the downside, they'll be up a creek without a paddle if they don't find a way to get back into space soon...more literally than usual, considering that they've just so happened to crash in the highlands where Chandilar's mightiest river rises...


	22. Chapter 22

With the Mind Stone, Gamora finds Tony, the little Terran boy she found crawling around in her rack on Svartalfheim. She sighs, when she sees where he is, and with whom he is. She's sure hate to break Benazir's little Persian heart... So, with the Time Stone, she makes a move that will spare Benazir the memories; ALL of them...

A thousandth his normal size, Tony has scaled Lubaba Bultossa's upper legs and panties. They're both huge. He now stands at the rim of her navel. Below, her navel is deep and wide, like an asteroid crater...

She doesn't feel him. Tony never knew being insignificant could be so much fun...or steamy...

From her navel, it's a long way to her boobs. In moments like these, he'd wish he had his suit...but then he wouldn't get to savor every nth-inch of her nude front...

He braves the journey. For most of it, he doesn't need bravery. He just needs an open pair of eyes and a hard cock. Her skin is SO ebony, and his is SO clear...

He gets to her boobs. To him, it's like he's at the base of a mountain. Somehow, he starts climbing the one over her heart. It's a very long climb, and the constant thumping of her heart-which is possibly caffeine-spiked-causes minor tremors across it.

Far away and far beneath, below the nearby volcano, Magma is scuba-diving in magma, looking for something. His teammates can't imagine how he can see anything down there...although it makes a little more sense to them how the magma doesn't melt his suit, or him.

A LITTLE more sense, understand...

The New Mutants have someone named Magma. But again, she's a mutant, and not someone who wears a magma-proof exosuit...

Ms. Bultossa rests topless. She moans securely in her sleep, unaware that there's a bug-sized white boy climbing on her left boob as if it were a mountain.

Farther away, Ms. Bultossa rubs her thighs together. In her rest, she draws circles around her navel with her index finger. And she giggles. She likes having Tony on her boob; Tony can tell...

Her lips are huge. Tony wouldn't mind seeing those up close, either...

The door creaks open. Tony freezes, and his own heart does in his chest...

THIS time around, it's Gamora, rather than Benazir, who slips in. For the time being, Gamora's distracted Benazir. Alas, Benazir won't stay that way forever. So she must make her move, and be prompt...

Tony's confused. Excited, and more scared than the first time he met her...but confused. Last time he saw her, after all, she had ponytails. And she was less serious...

Carefully, Gamora plucks Tony off Ms. Bultossa, with her big green fingers. She holds Tony near-buff body on her finger. She examines him, and chuckles. "I can see that our time apart hasn't helped you grow any." She flaps her hair, and adjusts her sleeveless top. "It's Tony, isn't it?"

"Gamora?! What happened to you?! I thought I'd never see you again. What'd you do to your hair, and...where did you get those rhinestone gauntlets."

"I'll explain later. We've got to get out of here."

"No, wait! I have to...!"

Too late; Gamora squeezes her other hand, which has the Space Stone on its gauntlet, and teleports out of the room.

In their absence, and at Ms. Bultossa's bedroom door, Benazir creeps in. To Tony, she'd be titanic. But at least she's still more in-line with Tony's generation. If she could see him in the first timeline, she sure can't in this one; he's not there. She makes a disgusted noise, and passes her mother by. She just hates it when her mother shows off the mature perfection of her body, as if being married wasn't sating enough for her sexuality...

One day, she'll understand that NOTHING sates anyone's sexuality; male, female, LGBTQ, or paraphilic. But for now, she can't; she's just a country girl from Old Persia...and hardly destined to become the prime minister of the Pakistani States, let alone the premier of Sindh...


	23. Chapter 23

In London, the main building for Hammer Industries stands tall. A British flag flies high over the...over-financed entrance.

Atop, the equally-overfinanced penthouses are in short supply. Some who do live here are seldom home.

In one, Gamora teleports, via the Space Stone. She appears near the bed. The maids have taken more than good care of it in the owners' absence. Gamora almost regrets to kill any maid who tries to interrupt her and little Tony.

She throws Tony, still a thousandth his normal size, onto the bed. She slips off the Infinity Gauntlets, opens the middle drawer of the bedside table, drops them in there, and shuts them in.

Tony scoffs. "Is that Mind Stone finally getting to you?"

Gamora stops, and stares at him, with narrow eyes. She flips the bird at him.

"I'm going to take a shower now. You'd BETTER be here when I get back." She points at the bedside table, in which the Infinity Gauntlets are "hidden." "You KNOW I'll find you," she adds.

With that, she strips in front of him. From far below, Tony stares. He doesn't flinch when she drops her bra atop him.

In someone else's shower, she cleans herself. Ah, how the owner must make out with women in here...and not necessarily with his wife. Honestly, Gamora would be surprised if any of Hammer Industries' officers were married. Tony sure would be; especially if it was Hammer's founder and CEO; Sir Justin, White Knight of all Weaponry Defective.

Ah, it feels good. Gamora is used to a life of space-faring. Alas, she didn't always have the Infinity Stones to do it with. Even so, she recalls all the times a spacecraft would take WAY too long to get to another solar system in the galaxy. And for that, a truck stop on an asteroid felt like paradise. So much, in fact, that sometimes Gamora would rather kill herself than go back into space. But at the end of the day...or whatever unit of time wherever she is goes by...there's no amount of comfort that can get Gamora to grow too many roots.

Hela generates obsidian spikes from herself. And she can't commit to anything other than her own ambition, the dead, Hel, and Niffelheim…

Tony thinks about leaving before she gets out... But as long as he's certain that she'll do worse to him if he tries, he reluctantly dreads what he hopes to be the lesser of two evils...

In the stall, Gamora tries to use soap. She breaks off the top of the bottle when she tries to open it. And she accidentally empties the whole bottle when she tries to squirt a dollop out. Furiously, she throws every bottle of soap that she destroys across the bathroom. Seriously; as rich as these corporate officers are, you'd think they could afford to invest in some Zen-Whoberian-proof soap bottles...

At last, she comes out. She hasn't bothered to dry off...or dress. Slowly, she approaches Tony. She'd rush towards anything else...but for tony, she reserves a special place, in her...small-yet-conditionally-expandable heart...

Like a panther with wet hair, she crawls over the bed. The ground bends below and away from Tony, towards her. It bends even more where her hands and knees come down. She nearly squashes him once.

Far above, her boobs hang, and drip. Tony's being rained on. And the raindrops are as big as asteroids to him. Her entire body is green.

"You were SO good to me on Svartalfheim," she tells him, "when nobody else was. You inspired me. You comforted me. While my sober self would've refused you...I owe you a debt." She raises her head, a bit. "And THIS is how I'm going to pay it..."

Between her fingers, she holds Tony upside down. She drops him. On cue, she slaps her upper legs together, and traps him in there. As Tony struggles to stay sober, Gamora lies on her side, keeps her thighs together, and raises and lowers them many times.

Tony won't stay sober. The Most Dangerous Woman in the Galaxy's making him feel happier than he's ever been...with any girl his size back in Malibu.

He doesn't remember Benazir. Benazir never happened...

Next, Tony ascends her boobs. With each one, he takes his time getting to their tops. Then, he ascends her nipples. He rubs his feet on them.

Gamora relaxes. She loves what little Tony's doing to her...

Next, Tony explores her back. For this, Gamora lies on her chest. Now she REALLY looks like a panther. Her hair's just about dry now...

To Tony, her back is like a vast green plain. And it's terraformed to his liking; MORE so, if he dares admit...even if it is green...

Next, he works out atop her toenail. He's so small, he could play tennis on it. Gamora sits high, on the edge of the bed, and admires him. She's surprised she can see him from up here, as small as he is.

"You're good at this," she tells him. "Are you sure you're trying to tell me that you've often time to do this AND build exosuits?"

Tony shrugs. "It's a work in progress." He wipes his brow. "As much as I love this, shouldn't we be saving the world about now?"

She giggles. "The world can wait. I can't. And you WILL pay your debt to me, if I have to kill you every five minutes. I possess the Time Stone. You know I can."

"Of course. Just...forgive me if I can't do enough."

"Oh, don't worry, little Tony," she flaps her long raven hair. "You can do WAY more than my normal-sized ex, Quill, can."

Tony scoffs. "You have an ex named Quill?!"

"HEY," Gamora shouts. "There's no such thing as a perfect dating resume!"


	24. Chapter 24

This is the planet Elysian. Once, it was home to a race of high eugenic quality... Now, it's a windy, dusty, and sepia dystopia. There are twin suns, that're farther away from Elysian than Earth's sun is from it. One's smaller than the other.

Here, a trio is on the hunt. They call themselves the Titanic Three.

This is Crimson Dynamo. His exosuit is Slavic red. Inside the suit, Alex Nevsky scans the suit's heads-up display, which feeds him spicy data, like possible signatures of their quarry's presence.

He misses his sweetheart, Janice Cord. Alas, she seems to over-prefer her job at Stark International these days... That part of Stark Industries used to be her own company, Cord Industries. Alas, she didn't agree with Alex, when he tried to tell her, flirtateously, that she was more qualified to be CEO of a company than her father. (Her father would've been her predecessor, if she hadn't sold the company to the Starks.)

This is Radioactive Man. He's bright green...but not with envy; with radiation. His eyes lack pupils. He glows almost as brightly as a star. With the power of a star in his chest, and all over his body, Chen Lu is the gunship of the trio.

And finally, this is Titanium Man. He's a mecha, whose suit makes Crimson Dynamo look like a doll. Inside, Boris Bullski pilots the mecha. Once, he was a Slavic patriot. Nowadays, alas, he's trending more towards global communism...

Onward, they hunt. Radioactive Man teleports here and there, but can't seem to detect their quarry's presence...

A while back, Dark Aegis was in orbit, around Elysian, in a space station. He was preparing for the Titanic Three's arrival...

Alas, this spaceship was hijacked by a foreign source. He struggled to regain control of the ship, but nearly got electrocuted, several times, while trying.

His spacecraft is set down on the surface of Titan, the moon of Saturn. Nearby, the ruins of an old Titan city still stand...

One debris-crunching step at a time, Dark Aegis wanders through the city's ruins. Past him, a loose Titan flag flies. He aims an Oracle weapon at it, and blasts it to blackened fibers.

Soon, he's in a duel with a pair of robots he's never met. The duel lasts quite some time, and destroys many more of the city's ruins...before Dark Aegis realizes that these people are here to trade with him, rather than hurt him.

Ultimo introduces both himself, and Gargantus. They make a deal with him: if he helps them, they'll lead him to Svartalfheim, where he can destroy all the svartálfar, thus saving Gargantus the relatively manual labor of doing it himself.

Hasty to avoid his executioners, Dark Aegis agrees. Together, they all power their thrusters, and leave Titan.


	25. Chapter 25

The sky is overcast in Malibu...especially over the main building of Stark International.

Stane sits alone, on his desk, waiting for the sun to set. He can't say he prefers what's going on over in Old Persia...

Stealthily, Su Lin enters. She apologizes for interrupting, but she thinks that Tony has run off...again.

In an alternate timeline, the one that Stane prefers, he scoffs, and says something like, "Let him run. With luck, he's dead by now. If there's one more thing this company doesn't need, it's another Stark."

But in this one, Stane stands, and feigns concern...best he can, being a general stone-face when it comes to friends and family. Howard was like a brother to him...and sometimes more like a father than Stane would have patience for. Even so, he meets Ms. Lin in the middle, and takes her wrists in his hands.

"All will be well in the end, Ms. Lin," he tells her. "I thank you for all you do to make sure my old boss's son doesn't die of starvation or heatstroke. It's women like you that keep corporate officers like me from going crazy. If only more of you dug the peasants who do the real work of this company."

Ms. Lin looks up at Stane, confused. She can't tell if he's trying to be helpful, or plotting to betray her...

"Put the word out, Ms. Lin," Stane says, letting her go, and returning to his desk. "Little Tony must be found at all costs."

"Yes, Mr. Stane." With that, she leaves. Stane goes back to his brooding.

The sun sets over the Pacific. Ashore, everyone on the famous Malibu beaches is just about ready to retire...

Not Stane. He sits alone, in a wardroom. Tonight, he expects visitors. He expects to wield judgment, for losses made in Old Persia.

Mad Thinker shows up, with a lot of his androids. He insists that they're doing everything they can, out there.

Stane grins, opens a suitcase, and puts a recoilless rifle together. When he's done, he loads it, aims it at Mad Thinker's chest, and fires.

He leaves a hole in the wall. That probably wasn't his best move...

Even so, Stane salvages a central unit from Mad Thinker's severed head, opens it, and reprograms it. In his aftermath, his many androids come to life, and fix the wall.

"Your labor was conscientious," Stane admits, "but not premium. Even so, I've got a new team of androids on this. Unlike yours, they WON'T fail me."

Stane retires to an elevator. And from there, he retires to his lair.

Down there, his Iron Monger suit is almost ready for deployment. All he's got to do is wait for his Chessmen to clean up what he'd rather not himself...


	26. Chapter 26

Welcome to Mt. Nadeer. It's a volcano in the Arabian Sea. Stane doesn't know it yet, but this should be the volcano he should be sending Mole Man, Mad Thinker, and Magma to mine in.

The island is jungle-covered, in most spots. It certainly looks as if it's been a while since Mt. Nadeer's last eruption.

Atop a hill, there's a clearing. A tree stump sits nearby.

Via the Space Stone, Gamora teleports into view. She looks around. Human- or humanoid-wise, she seems to be alone...save a few lemurs and monkeys that live here. She sure hopes Mandrill isn't snooping around...or Gibbon...

Confident, she pulls little Tony out of her boob crack, and sets him atop the stump. She stands back, and uses both the Reality and Space Stones to re-enlarge Tony to normal. The Stones light up red and blue, respectively, as they're used.

She giggles, when she sees how under-dressed he is. Tony scoffs, stands, knocks his arms together, and activates the neural implants in his arms.

With the Space Stone, Gamora teleports all of Tony's gear to the island. One by one, mobile battlements levitate to the island, via thrusters. Iron Man-esque androids bring them. Working as a team, the Iron Legion gets to work.

A team even comes by, and pitches a tent for Gamora and Tony. One of them falls apart, leaving an exosuit for Tony.

The mobile battlements are self-manning. Tony's also imported some unmanned aerial gunships, for backup. Each battlement bears an energy cannon; like the one on Iron Man's chest. The War Machine battlement bears a high-tech Gatling gun, with various swivels.

The Iron Legion leaves some pillboxes on the volcano's slopes. They're all armed.

One of the latest additions to the Iron Legion is the Iron Stingray. He's like the villain Stingray, only fully robotic, and bearing the colors of the Iron Legion. (Stingray is a human who wears a stingray-themed exosuit.) Iron Stingray deploys, from a mecha android, into the sea surrounding Mt. Nadeer, and begins his sea patrols.

There's already a satellite in space. It's watching for Ultron's, Gargantus's, and Dark Aegis's arrivals. And that's not all it's doing...

At long last, the preparations are complete. The Iron Legion cleans up the excess, and flies away, leaving Gamora and Tony alone with the defenses.

On the ground, Tony's exosuit has materialized itself into a diamond-pendant necklace. Tony smiles, takes it up, and puts it around his neck.

"Great," Tony beams. "Now all we've gotta do is wait for the fight to come to us."

"Yes," Gamora smirks. She stands, and studies Tony. "Sorry about this, but..." Using the Reality and Space Stones as before, Gamora once again shrinks Tony to the size he was. Tony gapes and laments, as Gamora once again towers over him.

She pinches him, picks him up, and holds him to her lips. Tony will never get used to being shrunk and seduced by a green alien babe.

"It'll probably take them a while longer to get here," she tells him, thundering with her voice to him. "And we both know just how much I hate to be kept waiting. We're going to go into that tent. And I am going to overindulge in you, my new love, until the Titans come home."

With that, she sticks tiny Tony back into her breasts, giggles, and slips into the tent. Inside, in the buff, atop all the Persian rugs on the tent floor, she has her way with tiny Tony...all thirty-six positions of it.


	27. Chapter 27

Welcome to Dubai. There are many nice hotels here. And within them, there are even nicer bathrooms...

Alone and in the center, the restroom attendant shakes, with his hands behind his head. On either side of him, both rows of toilets are occupied.

Androids use them. They're the Chessmen. Black uses one row of toilets; white uses the other. It's unclear as to what the hell Obadiah Stane was thinking, when he programmed a platoon of androids use a human restroom, before going to a volcano to launch an assault upon his old friend's son...

From the attendant's belt, a goblet hangs. It looks VERY much like the Holy Grail...

Simultaneously, the Chessmen flush. They turn, punch several buttons on their groins, and proceed out. The attendant shakes and shivers even more, as they march past him in dual files...

With a halberd, the Black Knight retrieves the goblet from the Arab's belt. He takes a moment to fill it at the sink. He throws a bag of gold into the attendant's money plate, and leaves...sipping the Grail, and "attaining eternal life," as he goes along...

If the Black Knight wasn't going off to a battle where he'd surely die, he'd get a chance to find out if the Holy Grail grants eternal life to ANDROIDS, as well as humans...


End file.
